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BBB. Chapter 3: Slave Occupations

Page 1

[CHAPTER 3]
[Page 1]
SLAVE OCCUPATIONS
The field of research on slave occupations has been a neglected one, judging from the records now available, and yet the activities of the slaves in various trades and industries were many. A study of this length could hardly do justice to the period between 1712 and 1863. The whites held most of the skilled and unskilled trades at the beginning of Louisiana colonization, but with the early influx of African slaves the authorities made frantic appeals for skilled white workers who were ready to show “their trade to the negroes.”1
With some slight exceptions during the colonial period in Louisiana, the Negro slaves held a position of prominence in the trades and occupations. Only with the American Domination and the rise of German and Irish immigrant labor did these people--free and slave--relinquish their hold upon the industrial occupations.
On most of the great plantations the agricultural and mechanical advancement of the slaves progressed side by side. The plantations, from the earliest times to the end of the antebellum period, were self-sustaining communities contained within their own boundaries. They were like small cities where the agricultural worker, and the artisan, the merchant, the fisherman, the hunter, and the domestic worker, all worked together for the welfare and comfort of one common master or masters. In the sale of the Chaouachas plantation in 1737, one slave, named Thomas, was a blacksmith;2 another, named Jean, was a harness-maker; Nea Bambara was a bricklayer; and another

The unpublished manuscript "The Negro in Louisiana" is a work begun by the Dillard (University) Project in 1942, an arm of the WPA's Federal Writer's Project. After the dissolution of the unit, Marcus Christian maintained and edited the document in hopes of eventual publication. It is reproduced here as an annotated transcript, with original typos, chapters, and paginations preserved.

[CHAPTER 3]
[Page 1]
SLAVE OCCUPATIONS
The field of research on slave occupations has been a neglected one, judging from the records now available, and yet the activities of the slaves in various trades and industries were many. A study of this length could hardly do justice to the period between 1712 and 1863. The whites held most of the skilled and unskilled trades at the beginning of Louisiana colonization, but with the early influx of African slaves the authorities made frantic appeals for skilled white workers who were ready to show “their trade to the negroes.”1
With some slight exceptions during the colonial period in Louisiana, the Negro slaves held a position of prominence in the trades and occupations. Only with the American Domination and the rise of German and Irish immigrant labor did these people--free and slave--relinquish their hold upon the industrial occupations.
On most of the great plantations the agricultural and mechanical advancement of the slaves progressed side by side. The plantations, from the earliest times to the end of the antebellum period, were self-sustaining communities contained within their own boundaries. They were like small cities where the agricultural worker, and the artisan, the merchant, the fisherman, the hunter, and the domestic worker, all worked together for the welfare and comfort of one common master or masters. In the sale of the Chaouachas plantation in 1737, one slave, named Thomas, was a blacksmith;2 another, named Jean, was a harness-maker; Nea Bambara was a bricklayer; and another